New Delhi: At the CPI(M) office in Bhai Veer Singh Marg, it was like any other morning. The office was empty, and an old hand was wiping the floor with a mopper. A few reporters had gathered already and were watching election counting trends on a TV in a room next to the reception.
The first leader to arrive at the office was Hannan Mollah, at around 9.45 am. By then, the trends were clear- while the CPI(M)-led LDF would win Kerala, it would perform very poorly in West Bengal, worse than its performance in the 2011 Assembly elections.
The CPI(M) had taken a huge risk in going for an alliance with the Congress in West Bengal.It was a divided politburo under the leadership of general secretary Sitaram Yechury that had finally endorsed the decision. Leaders from West Bengal - Biman Bose, Surjyakanta Mishra - pushed for an informal alliance in what they called ' the prevailing atmosphere of terror'. The Kerala faction in the PB, led by SR Pillai, opposed it. Now, when results started tricking in, it was clear that the experiment was a failure.
What made WB results more bitter to swallow was, that while the Congress had gained from the vote shift from the Left, the latter was decimated.
Hannan Mollah was very candid in his assessment of West Bengal results. And the trend is against the opposition in Bengal. "Six months back we thought that we will not be able to fight elections. In panchayat elections, 6000 candidates were forced to withdraw. But as some lower-level unity developed, people tried to resist on the ground, we thought that this resistance will translate into votes. But we could not mobilise votes of common people. You may call it a ' debacle, " he said.
Former general secretary Prakash Karat and politburo Member Brinda Karat arrived shortly before 10 am. Prakash refused to elaborate on the trends in West Bengal, ' let's wait for final results', he said. On Kerala, he said it was on expected lines.
On asked whether the Left experiment with Congress in West Bengal had failed, Brinda Karat said, "Let's wait for the final results . I do not think we should come to such conclusions. But undoubtedly, this is a major factor that we will have to review."
A Sampath and Subhashini Ali were the next to reach. Clearly, the win in Kerala had given them a reason to smile, " We are all Keralites," Subhashini told Sampath.
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"It is because of the pro-poor policies of the Left. Our MLAs worked for people even though they were out of power," she said.
General secretary Sitaram Yechury was the last to arrive, at around two minutes past 11. When he was mobbed by media personnel, he said he would take all questions in a press conference at 3.30pm.
Yechury knows he is in for a rough time when the politburo meets on the 22nd. The risk he had taken has not paid off. Worse, it had benefited the Congress. Again, questions will be asked of the ' relevance of the Left'.
So what went so wrong for the CPI(M) in West Bengal, its bastion for 34 uninterrupted years until 2011? Was there a grievous miscalculation by the Bengal leaders? Have the people of Bengal punished the Left for the ambiguous articulation of its arrangement with the Congress? Was it the failure of the organisational capacity of the party ? Or is it a rejection of its ideology?
Hannan Mollah said, "I will not say miscalculation, but our organisation could not turn the new development of coming together and building resistance into votes."
Subhasini Ali believes that the reason for the bad performance in Bengal was not due to organisational weaknesses, "We had large rallies, lakhs of people came, the organisation is there'.
When the politburo meets on 22nd, the party's arrangement with the Congress in WB will be debated and reviewed, and the divergence between leaders would be amplified.
In his first speech after taking over as CPM General Secretary, Yechury had termed the CPI(M) as ' the party of the future'. The 2016 Assembly elections in Kerala and West Bengal was a test of his political skill and acumen.
It will be five more years before these states go to polls again. When the politburo meets on the 22nd of this month, knives will be out for Yechury. And he knows that.
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